


The Time of Cruel Miracles

by Ms_FangTooth



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, RipFic, between season 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_FangTooth/pseuds/Ms_FangTooth
Summary: A time-lost horror haunts a secluded space station.  Can the Legends stop it before it consumes one of their own?Written for the Rip Hunter Discord Chat Fic Exchange.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ams75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ams75/gifts).



> I wrote this fic for the Rip Hunter Discord Chat Fic Exchange. My recipient, ams75 requested: "Rip being awesome, happy ending, Rip uninjured by the end if he does get hurt during a fic. If art - Awesome Rip is awesome, artist can draw or .gif or make a video of what makes Rip a hero."
> 
> I decided to take this opportunity to try my hand at writing an actual plot for once.
> 
> The Title is from Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem, and was suggested by [Drogna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drogna/pseuds/Drogna), who also provided much needed beta editing. Thank you!

**Prologue** :

The creature drifted alone and dying, the last of its energy spent in its wild escape from the Time Vortex.  It had no concept of where and when it emerged.  It had long since lost its capacity for conscious thought entirely.  All it knew was terrible, yawning hunger.  Without sustenance, soon, it would cease to exist.

But there was sustenance near.  Somewhere in the distance, wrapped in metal, the creature could taste carbon, water, electricity.  Life.  Survival instincts flared and the creature found itself propelling through space, toward that metal enclosure and the nourishment within.

It was so very hungry.

 

**Chapter 1:**

It had been some time since Gideon had last detected a Time Aberration, and the crew had been enjoying their brief and unexpected downtime.  Rip Hunter was in his office, celebrating the likely brief calm with a glass of brandy, as he reviewed his notes.  On the bridge, Sara Lance was in the pilot’s chair, taking advantage of the relative calm of the Time Vortex to practice her flying.  Since their misadventures at Vanishing Point, Sara had been quick to seize any opportunity to take the Waverider’s controls, and Rip had to admit that she had a knack for it.  She wasn’t quite ready to take on the trickier dips and eddies of an unsupervised flight, but that was really only a matter of time.

Or necessity, Rip thought, sparing a glance toward the floor.  Given their track record, Sara was likely going to have to show her newfound expertise sooner rather than later.

Elsewhere in the ship, Doctor Ray Palmer and Professor Martin Stein were likely working on some sort of potentially apocalyptic science projects, while God only knew what Mick Rory was doing.  At least he could trust that Jefferson Jackson was doing something productive rather than horrifying, likely some long overdue maintenance or repair work that Rip had neglected for far too long.

“Captain, I have detected the location of our next time aberration.”  Rip turned his attention to the display that Gideon helpfully provided.  He blanched.

“Are you certain, Gideon?  No, of course you are.” He shook his head.  “Well, I suppose that it can’t be helped.  Please call the others for a meeting.”

__

“Gideon has located our next aberration.”

It was a little gratifying how quickly the team gathered in Rip’s office.  For the most part, his Legends had taken to the idea of hunting aberrations with admirable enthusiasm and even some modest success amid the occasional near-catastrophic failure.  It was a work in progress.  

“So what’s the big deal, Englishman?”  Mick Rory slouched against the doorframe, the one exception to the general level of enthusiasm.  Rip wasn’t sure if the man was bored or mildly intoxicated.  Or both.  “We’ve seen aberrations before.”

“The ‘big deal’, Mr. Rory, is that this aberration is located in the year 2236.  In your...in  _ our _ future.”

Rip knew that Mick’s past as Chronos wouldn’t have involved a lot of the theoretical underpinnings of time travel, but his practical experience was second only to the Time Masters themselves.  And sure enough, Mick pulled himself off of the door frame, his eyebrows raised.  “Should be interesting.”

“The future!”  Ray’s eyes sparkled with excitement.  “We almost never get to go to the future!  I can’t wait to see the replicators and the phasers and the starships!”

“Dude, we have a replicator, anyway.  And a fabricator.  And laser guns.”  Jax had, in fact, done maintenance and repairs on all of those things very recently.  The young man really had a talent for it.

“Yeah, but we’ll get to see those things in their natural habitat.”  Then Ray’s smile died and his eyes shifted guiltily toward Rip.  “But then, the last time we went to the future, it wasn’t really the nicest place.”

“Actually, Dr. Palmer,” Gideon chimed in, “the early 24th Century was known to be a time of great exploration and discovery.”  Ray brightened again.

Sara looked perturbed.  “Rip, you once told me that traveling to the future was more dangerous than traveling to the past.  Why is that?”

Rip studied her, he hadn’t really been intending to go into a lecture on temporal mechanics, but this was something she’d need to understand sooner rather than later.  “Ultimately, it’s a matter of stability.  When we travel to the past, we’re dealing with events that have already happened in our personal timelines, and the effects of these events are predetermined and cannot easily be changed.”

“But we change the past all the time,”  Jax commented.

“We do.  But the changes that we make are generally small and discreet.  It’s rather like throwing rocks into a river.  It likely matters to the fish, but it doesn’t stop the river from going where it needs.  It’s much harder to effect bigger changes, as you know.”  He looked sympathetically toward Jax.  Jax had been quietly devastated when he had returned home to 2016, only to learn that his father had died in a plane crash flying home from Somalia.  Jax had saved him from one death, only to lose him anyway.

Jax was clearly thinking about that as well.  “Time wants to happen,” he said, with some bitterness.  Martin put a hand on Jax’s shoulder.

“Yes.”  Rip said, gently.  “If a time traveler makes a change that is likely to make a substantial alteration of their own past, it tends to correct itself.  A father who was meant to go to jail for theft ends up going to jail for trying to fence stolen goods, because if he hadn’t, his son might have grown up to be a very different man, who might be less inclined to travel through time.  Time abhors a paradox.”

“It’s not foolproof though,” Rip continued quickly, before his Legends could get any ideas.  “If you do something extreme, such as killing your grandfather as a young man…,” he noticed the speculative looks on a few faces and covered his face with one hand.  “Please do not actually kill your grandfather.  As an experiment or otherwise.  The results would be catastrophic.”

Rip tried not to think about the way certain of his teammates looked disappointed.

“But the future doesn’t have this level of ‘paradox prevention’?” Martin asked, he looked fascinated, and Rip really hoped he kept whatever undoubtedly brilliant insights he’d discover to equations, as opposed to laboratory experiments.

“No, because the future is in flux.  A single act can have catastrophic consequences.”  Rip gave a rueful grimace.  “That may be unavoidable with you lot, but I’d appreciate if you tried to keep the timeline intact.”

Rip tapped a button and Gideon’s display changed to a small rotating station.  “This is our destination, a relay station in the Alpha Centauri system.  Its primary function is to facilitate communication between Earth and outer space settlements, and to provide a resource for refueling for space ships coming to and from deep space.  Most of its functions are automatic, but it has a small crew which oversees the station’s operation and performs necessary repairs.”

Gideon’s head appeared again.  “According to our original records: in 2243, the Alpha Centauri relay station under Commander Alexander West was instrumental in facilitating first contact with a species called the Xig, after detecting and decoding a subspace distress call.  The relationship between humans and the Xig is generally positive and leads to mutual advancements in xenobiology and food production.”

“At least, that’s what was supposed to happen before they encountered the aberration,”  Rip added.  Gideon’s display reverted to the station again, but this time it was still.  “Instead, on November 6, 2236, the station shut down completely, cutting off communication between Earth and its deep space settlements for the span of three days.  Earth’s government sent a team to investigate and found the station crew dead.  The communications blackout caused additional problems for many of the deep space settlements.  In the end, it took years to recover.”

“So we get to save the space station and the future.”  Ray and Martin were visibly excited, and even Sara and Jax looked intrigued.  It was hard to tell what Mick Rory thought, but he hadn’t pulled out a beer bottle at least.

Rip hoped he wouldn’t regret this.

__

Sara surrendered the pilot’s seat to Rip with only a trace of regret.  They were jumping farther into the future than they’d ever been before and no one wanted to risk a less trained hand on the controls.

“So what’s the plan?”  she asked, settling in one of the chairs behind Rip.  She saw him try to hide his reflexive start and buried a sigh.  It wasn’t the start that bothered her.  She knew that the new bridge configuration was hard for him.  He’d done it for them, so that they’d feel more like part of the crew, but it was hard for a man who’d been alone for so long to get used to the feeling of people practically breathing down his neck.  Sara could relate.  She remembered how hard it had been to be around people again, after Lian Yu.  But she wished Rip didn’t feel like he had to hide his feelings from them.  She wished he’d trust them.

She shifted her focus to the mission at hand.  “Are we going to sneak in?”  Disguises were never a problem with the fabricator and she had to admit, she was intrigued by the thought of future fashion.  

“I don’t think that’d work,” Ray chimed in from his own seat.  “A station is a closed environment, just like a spaceship.  They’ll be monitoring things like mass and oxygen consumption.  They’re going to notice a change as soon as we get on board.”

Rip nodded.  “I think we’ll be using the direct approach.”  He saw their looks of surprise.  “Time travel isn’t unheard of at this point in Earth’s history, and this way no one has to try to act.”  Rip shot her a pointed look, and Sara frowned.  She couldn’t believe he was still holding a grudge over that incident in Italy.  It could have happened to anyone.

Their arrival in 2236 was uneventful, and once Sara’s ears stopped ringing, and Jax stopped speaking in tongues, Rip contacted the station.  Sara frowned.  Gideon had provided dossiers on the station’s command crew, and since the other crew members were women, this had to be Commander West.  But according to the file, Alexander West was forty five years old.  This man’s lined face and shadowed eyes looked twenty years older than that.  She glanced at Rip, who looked just as perturbed.

“Am I speaking to Commander West?”  Rip didn’t wait for an answer.  “My name is Rip Hunter.  I am a time traveler and I am looking for the source of a temporal anomaly that I have tracked to your station.  My crew and I request permission to board your station.”

Commander West frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but Rip was talking again.  “A simple scan of my ship will verify the presence of time travel technology and a search of your database should call up my name.  I’m willing to wait for you to send a message to your superiors, if that’s what you need to do.”

For a man who was about as communicative as a brick, Rip was good at the direct approach.  He had, after all, managed to recruit the team.  Sure, it had taken an abduction and a dramatic rooftop conversation, but it had worked.  

West’s face changed and Sara felt her hackles rise.   _ Threat! _  Her instincts screamed.  But…

“Sir,” a quiet voice whispered from behind West, and the man turned away from the viewscreen.  She could hear conversation, but it was too muffled to pick out words.  Maybe Gideon could amplify it?  Rip just waited.

West turned back to the screen, looking unhappy, but he acquiesced.  “I’ll send you the boarding information for hanger five.  Wait for me there.”

__

The hanger bay was easily large enough to accomodate the Waverider, and when they disembarked, they were greeted by a blonde woman in repair coveralls, holding an unlabeled bottle.

“Been a while since we had guests here at good old Calamity Station,”  she slurred.  “Hope you guys live longer than the last ones.”  She coughed and then threw up, perilously close to their shoes.

“I think I’m going to like it here,” Mick said.

Anything else that anyone might have said was cut off as another woman entered the hanger.  She smiled anxiously at the group, but then her eyes went to her colleague and her smile turned into a grimace.  

“Oh for heaven's sake, Jen.”  She pulled the other woman’s arm over her shoulder.  They were a study in contrasts.  The drunk woman was older, white, red haired, and very disheveled.  The newcomer was dark, Indian, Sara guessed, and almost painfully young, her uniform pressed and immaculate, her buttons and insignia polished to a shine.

After the newcomer got her friend settled, she turned back to the team.  “Hi, I’m Lieutenant Lynn Mehta.  Commander West sent me to greet you and give you the grand tour.”

Ultimately, Sara and Jax chose to accompany Mehta on her tour.  Ray and Martin had remained on the ship, calibrating and monitoring the sensors in an attempt to detect the aberration that way.   Rip had chosen to go up to the bridge to speak to Commander West directly.  God knew where Mick and the drunk officer went off to.

The tour was reasonably short: the station was old and nearly derelict.  

“We don’t see a lot of foot traffic,” Mehta explained, sheepishly.  “The station is primarily a communications relay.  We have a refueling station, but it doesn’t see a lot of use anymore, not after the new hyperspace engines were developed.”  

This led to a brief tangent of enthusiastic engine talk between Mehta and Jax.  Sara was impressed to see that Jax was easily keeping up his end of the conversation, she’d known he was a good mechanic on the Waverider, but clearly he’d been doing a lot of supplemental reading.

Unfortunately, Sara needed answers.  “So what did your friend mean when she said ‘hope we live longer than the last ones.’”

Mehta looked uncomfortable.  “About a week ago, a small liner came for refuelling.  A one-man crew.  The pilot was her brother.  Jen, ah, I mean, Lieutenant Connors, didn’t take it well when he died.”

“How did he die?”  Sara focused on Mehta, who shrugged.

“Exhaustion, malnutrition, dehydration…  it was like he’d been stuck aboard an empty ship, wasting away for weeks.  It didn’t make any sense.  He’d shipped out three days before.  We don’t have a doctor out here, just diagnostics.  Anything major gets sent back Earthside.  And he was already dead.”

“We have a doctor with us.”  Jax said quickly.  Well, between Grey and Gideon, they had something like a doctor anyway.  “Do you think we could check him out?  The body, I mean?”

Mehta shook her head.  “I’m sure Jen would consent, but Commander West didn’t want to take the chance that he had some bug that Diagnostics couldn’t catch.  He’s been cremated.  Jen didn’t take that well either.”

“Please don’t think badly of her,”  Mehta said, earnestly.  “I know she didn’t make the best impression, but she’s really a brilliant scientist and a good officer.  But it’s hard out here for someone who is grieving.  The work is monotonous, there are no distractions, and once you start falling into loneliness or despair, it’s next to impossible to pull yourself out again.”

__

“So.  Anything to do around here?”  Mick asked, as his new friend passed him a bottle.  They were sitting in some kind of science lab.  Haircut probably could identify the type just from the equipment, but Mick didn’t really give a shit.  There was booze here and a drunk chick who might have something useful to say.  And hell, if not, at least there was booze here.

“Jack shit,”  Drunk Chick said, with a grimace.  “Except fuck off and die, apparently.”  She shook her head.  “Sorry, you’re here to drink.  Not to listen to my shit.”

Mick made a noncommittal noise and passed back the bottle.

“It’s just...  Bobby was a good kid, y’know.  And he comes back here looking like something sucked the life straight out of him.  And then West starts acting squirrelly.  And now I don’t even have a body to take back home to bury.  Or burn.  Or fuck, I don’t even know what he wanted.”

Mick hoped she wasn’t going to cry.  He was never that great at dealing with crying women.  And if he thought about it, the whole not having a body thing maybe hit a little too close to home.  So he wasn’t going to think about it.

Definitely not thinking about it.

“Poor Mehta.  She’s a good kid.  Deserves better than to waste her career away here.  Like Bobby.”

“You find anything aboard his ship to explain it?”

“Not a damn clue.  Of course West sealed it up real quick.”

West again, Mick knocked back his bottle, wondering if the Englishman was having any luck there.

__

Rip was not having a lot of luck with Commander West.  Oh, the man was certainly accommodating enough, especially once Rip verified his credentials.  There was nothing like a quick display of future technology to awe the locals.  He allowed Rip access to all of the station’s records and data banks, which Rip immediately transmitted to Gideon for analysis, and was perfectly willing to answer questions.

His answers were not terribly useful however, and Rip wasn’t quite sure if he just didn’t know anything, or if he was hiding something.  Something in the set of the man’s shoulders and his refusal to meet Rip’s eyes implied the latter.  But what?

And he denied straight out any problems with health or exhaustion, which was bloody ridiculous, because he could see that the man’s physical state was a mess just by looking at him.  There was something familiar about that kind of deterioration actually.  He would have to check with Gideon.  But the thought died when the station’s fire alarm suddenly went off.

__

A fire aboard a space station like this was a big deal, Mehta explained to the tour group as they raced to the laboratory.  Sara and Jax exchanged a wordless glance but kept quiet.  There was one very probable cause for this fire.  But Mick wouldn’t have bothered without a reason.  Probably.

They met Rip and Commander West outside the Laboratory door, which opened to allow black smoke to billow out.  The fire was already out, thanks to the station’s old but functional fire suppression system.  But the lab was soaked.  Mick stood there, heat gun ready.

“What the hell is going on here?”  West demanded.  “I could have you up on charges!”

“We were attacked,”  Mick said.  “Connors is dead.”


	2. Chapter 2

****It wasn’t the first time that Mick had been found standing over a body with a weapon in his hand, and Mick wasn’t about to spill his guts to a cop (or “station authority”, but a badge was a badge).

Fortunately, the Englishman knew how to talk fast when he wanted, and West reluctantly allowed Rip to take Mick back to the Waverider.

It helped, of course, that Connors’ body showed no sign of any heat related injury.  Instead, she looked like Mehta’s earlier description of the pilot: drained to a husk.

Mick didn’t have much to share, really.  One second, Connors was reaching behind her desk for another bottle, the next, the lights had flickered and they weren’t alone in the room.

Mick didn’t recognize the guy, of course, but Connors did.  She’d called out to it, “Bobby!”  and reached out her arms.  It grabbed back and then she started to scream.  Mick aimed his heatgun, but there hadn’t been any way to blast the guy without hitting his victim too.  When he dropped her and turned to Mick, Mick fired immediately.

There was something that Mick didn’t tell them, though.  That for just a moment, before he pulled the trigger, the guy’s face  _ changed _ .  And for just a second, he looked like Len.

__

If it had been hard to get West to acquiesce to Rip taking Mick back to the Waverider, it had been even harder to get him to allow the team to take the body.  Fortunately, Mehta was there and willing to offer a compromise: she would supervise Rip’s team’s examination of the body.

“I want answers, sir,”  She’d said calmly, when it looked like West would protest.  “We might have had them before, if we’d gotten Bobby checked out instead of just cremating him.  I will go over your head and get the authorization if I have to, but I’d prefer not to have to do that.”

West had no choice but to back down.

“It’s like he doesn’t even want to find out what caused this,”  Jax muttered, and Mehta gave him a helpless shrug.

With Martin’s assistance, the examination was very quick.  Gideon was not only able to determine how Lieutenant Connors died, but also what killed her.  She’d been drained by a chronovore.

Sara saw the way Rip’s face went pale when Gideon said the word.  “What’s a Chronovore?!”

“It’s a creature that populates the space around Vanishing Point and other similar, locations that exist outside of the normal time stream.  It’s a psionic shapeshifter.  It hunts by taking the form of someone close to its victim, usually a lost loved one that slowly drains the life from them.”

“This wasn’t slow,”  Mick grumbled.

“No, it wasn’t,”  Rip agreed with a frown.  “I think that we need to have another talk with Commander West.”

It took Sara a moment.  “It’s draining him.  That’s why he looks so old.”

“I should have recognized the signs,”  Rip said.  “He must have been protecting it.”

“Why would he do that?”  Sara asked.

“The creature is empathic and is drawn to the recently bereaved.  It forms a mental bond with its prey and then takes the form of a lost loved one, specifically someone that the victim would not be able to bring himself to harm before it feeds.  The feeding strengthens the chronovore’s control over its victim and eventually the victim starts to lose their grip on reality, growing obsessed with the hallucination.”  He sighed.  “I suspect that Commander West lost someone recently, someone he loved very much.”

“Enough to endanger his crew?”  Sara shook her head.  “I can’t imagine ever being able to rationalize that.”  

Rip almost, but not quite, smiled.  

“So how do we fight this thing?”  asked Sara.

“We stay together.  The chronovore can only take one form at a time.  Jax and Martin should have some protection, based on their psychic link.  While Mr. Rory and I may have some protection due to Time Master training.  You and Lieutenant Mehta should…”

“I’m coming with you,”  Sara said.

“It’s dangerous.  You’ve suffered your own recent loss.”  He stopped short at Sara’s glare.

“Well, if it starts turning into Laurel, you have my permission to shoot it,”  she snapped.  “But I’m coming with you.”

Rip knew when he was facing a losing battle.  “Very well.”

When they got to the bridge, West wasn’t alone.  He was also armed.  A beautiful Polynesian woman stood next to him.  She studied the group, a faint smile hovering over her lips.

“Oh, my love,” she whispered in a voice like death.  “I’m so hungry.”

“Step away from the chronovore, Commander West.”  Rip said.

“I will not let you hurt her!”  West was fast, a lot faster than Sara would have expected, given his physical condition.  This was bad.  They couldn’t just kill West.  He had to live for the timeline’s sake, but he clearly had no qualms about killing  _ them _ .

The enraged Commander got off a couple of shots at the crew as they dove for cover.  He had aimed again, this time at Jax when there was a roar of blaster fire, and he collapsed, very obviously dead.

“I’m sorry, sir,”  Mehta whispered.  And Sara and Rip exchanged glances.

“So much for the timeline,” Mick muttered, as the chronovore started shrieking.

What had started as a woman’s scream quickly became something else, as the human mouth and throat that produced it collapsed into a mass of impossibly bright light.  It flew toward its opponents, and then, for one brief moment, Sara found her eyes caught.

Brown eyes, she realized.  She was staring at brown eyes, framed by bright blond hair, and she felt something within her pull her toward it...toward  _ Laurel. _

“Stop.”  

The command shouldn’t have worked, Sara thought as she managed to tear her eyes away from her sister.  (No, not her sister.)  No one ever listened to Rip.  But somehow, the chronovore did.  Rip set down his weapon and walked toward them.

Sara realized suddenly that she was in the center of the room, with Laurel...the chronovore, next to West’s body.  She hadn’t even felt herself move.

“You don’t want Ms. Lance,” he said, his voice as casually conversational as if he were at some kind of garden tea party, or whatever it was that British people did for fun.  “Not when you can have something a little more filling.”

He’d pulled off his duster, folding it over one arm.  His eyes remained fixed on the chronovore.  The chronovore stared back, as though mesmerized.

He reached out an arm toward the monster, who was looking less like Laurel with every passing second, as though allowing it to smell him.  

“You can taste it, can’t you?  I am a creature of Vanishing Point, just as you are.  What meal could possibly compare to a Time Master?”

It was working, Sara realized with elation, as she realized that the chronovore was changing its form.  Rip’s plan was working, whatever it was!  Except, then she saw the fey gleam in the Captain’s eye, and realized with a sinking feeling that there was no plan.   _ Fuck _ .

The chronovore was shrinking.  Long limbs and torso rapidly losing mass.  Brassy blond hair shortened and faded, becoming tow-headed over a small, intent face.  Laurel was gone and in her place, there was a vaguely familiar child of eight or nine years old.  Oh.   _ Oh no. _

“Hello, Daddy.”  The chronovore smiled, reaching out his tiny hand.  

Sara would have given a great deal to not be able to see Rip’s face at this moment.  He looked frozen but his eyes were filled with the kind of soul deep agony that she would remember in her nightmares.  She’d known, they all knew, that he’d lost his child along with his wife.  But she hadn’t really understood the magnitude of that loss until this moment

“Jonas.”  He breathed, a prayer more than an acknowledgment.   And then something changed, and she saw agony transform to steely determination and something else.  Something much darker.  He clasped the chronovore’s hand and it began to feed.

It was obvious immediately that something was wrong.  The child’s expression changed to one of fear and wrath.  It tried to pull back but Rip held on tighter.  It turned to Sara, and for a second, its form brightened and tried to grow and become Laurel again, but it snapped back.  A tow-headed child once more.

“Let me go,” it snarled, but its child’s voice made it sound more pitiful than terrifying.

“You made a mistake when you chose  _ his  _ face.  When you dared to desecrate his memory.”  

Sara finally realized what that dark emotion was that she saw in his face.  Triumph.

“You won’t hurt me.”  But the chronovore sounded uncertain.  “You can’t.  Not while I’m wearing this face.”

“You’re right.  The face you wear now calls to me on a soul deep, visceral level.  Every cell in my body revolts at the thought of allowing you to come to harm.”  He smiled.  Sara thought it might well have been the first time she’d ever seen the man smile.  And at this moment, she hoped she’d never see that smile again.  “But I don’t want to hurt you.  I just want to make sure that you can’t hurt anyone else.  And unlike poor Commander West, I can actually enforce that.”

“I could just drain you right now.”  It sounded like a bluff to Sara.  It apparently did to Rip as well.

“Jonas was always a terrible liar,” he said, softly.  “You could, yes.  But can you be sure that I’d let go of you first?  We’re linked now.  I might just take you with me.”  He ruffled the chronovore’s hair.  “You made this bed.  Now we’re both going to lie in it.”


	3. Chapter 3

“We should just kill it,”  Mick said, again, for the fourth time since they returned to the ship.  The chronovore came with them, not wanting to be separated from its only food source.  Right now, it was in sickbay, getting scanned.  No one was quite sure what Rip had said to it to get it to cooperate, but it did leave them

“I’ve told you, Mr. Rory.”  Rip said, wearily.  “I’m not going to let you do that.”

“You know it’s not really-”  Jax tried.

“I am  _ aware _ of that, thank you, Mr. Jackson.”  He grimaced.  “Or at least, my conscious mind is aware of that.  The psychic bond created by the chronovore is very strong, however.  My subconscious reactions are a different story.  More relevant to the discussion is that the psychic bond is two-way.  If you kill it, you kill me too.”

“So what’s the downside?”  Mick asked, but the frown on his face indicated that he was speaking more out of habit rather than expressing his genuine thoughts.

“I have to admit,” Ray said.  “I don’t really like the idea of killing something that’s only trying to survive.  It didn’t come here on purpose.  I mean, obviously, if it’s a choice between Rip or the chronovore, Rip wins, but I’d like to find a way to help it if we can.”

“How DID you manage to trap it?”  Martin asked, with some curiosity.  

“Well, as I’ve mentioned before, the Time Masters provide some training when it comes to defensive mental discipline.  It wouldn’t do, after all, to have a casual telepath just happen to scan our minds and extract the secrets of time travel.  But I was more successful than I expected due to its choice of form.”

“Jonas,”  Ray said softly.  

Rip winced slightly, but nodded.  “Even though I know, intellectually, that the creature is not my son.  There’s a part of me…”  He exhaled.  “When the last memory you have of your child is a broken body in the dirt, then it’s very hard not to be affected by the image of your child alive and well.”  Rip looked embarrassed then, as though he’d said far more than he wanted.

Martin’s face was filled with pity, and he patted the younger man on the shoulder.  “I’m not a parent and I won’t pretend to understand what you’re going through.  But we will search for a way to help you.”

“I’m counting on it, Martin.”

__

While Grey and the others talked to Rip, Jax decided to go find Mehta.  He found her in the kitchen, looking shaky.  

“This ship is amazing,”  Mehta said, but her smile was wan and forced.  “I have to admit, I didn’t think it looked like much from the outside, but inside, it’s amazing.”

Jax noticed the lights dim slightly and sub-vocalized “don’t be petty, Gideon.  She didn’t mean anything by it.”  The lights slowly brightened, though Jax got the impression that the acquiescence was sullen.

“It really is.”  He made sure to put his genuine love and affection for the Waverider into the statement, and the lights brightened further.  “Are you okay?”

“I...no.  I’m not, really.  Commander West...Jen...I don’t know how to process any of this.”

“You did what you had to do,”  Jax said, trying to comfort the young woman.

“I know, but a few hours ago, I was just the junior officer on the station.  I spent my days doing what little of my job isn’t automated, and then playing around with theoretical mathematics for the rest of the time.  Now, I’m the only member of the station crew left.  They’ll probably shut us down entirely and ship me back home.”

“No, you can’t let them do that,”  Jax said quickly.

“Why not?  We’re redundant anyway.  There are better refueling stations in easy flight range, and the communications relay is basically just a glorified antenna.”

“Listen, you know we’re time travelers, right?”  

Mehta nodded.

“Well, I can’t give you any details, but in a few years time, you guys are going to do something really important here.  Something that’s going to go down in the history books.”

“Do the history books reference us by name?  Or just Commander West.”  

Jax winced.

Mehta nodded.  “I killed Commander West.”

“I know, and you didn’t have a choice.  He was dying already.”  Gray had already done the scan to prove it.  Even if they had been able to get West subdued, his heart probably would have given out before they ever got him aboard ship.  “But listen, it doesn’t have to be him.  You’re smart and you’re capable, and you’re good at taking quick decisive action and doing what needs to be done.  You can do this.”

“I could steal his place, his legacy.”

“It’s not like that.  The credit isn’t important.  What matters is that if you stay, you can accomplish something that’s going to make a huge difference for a lot of people.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, finally.

__

“So you look like hell,” Sara said, entering Rip’s office.  

Rip lowered the book that he’d been leafing through.  Hell was possibly an understatement.  The crew had dropped off Mehta back at the station, and then spent the last two days hovering in the Time Vortex, looking for answers about what to do with their alien “guest”.  And Rip had spent that time getting weaker and weaker.  His eyes were shadowed and sunken, and his face looked even thinner than usual.  It was hard to tell beneath the man’s layers of clothing, but she thought he’d lost weight. 

The cause of the deterioration was sitting at Rip’s feet, playing with some kind of puzzle.

“Scram, small fry.  The grown-ups need to talk.”  She’d meant it to sound angry.  This thing was killing her crewmate and Captain, but it came out softer than that.  She guessed that she just didn’t have it in her to be mean to a child, even if it was just an alien in disguise.

Or was it, she thought, as the kid stood up.  

“Why don’t you go play with Gideon in my quarters?”  Rip suggested.

“It would be polite to ask before volunteering me, Captain.”  Gideon’s head popped up.  But even she seemed less snarky than usual.  “Come along, young Master Hunter.”

Sara raised an eyebrow.

Rip shrugged.  “Chronovores don’t have names  or even much in the way of individual identity under most circumstances.  I couldn’t bear to call him Jonas, but this seemed like a reasonable compromise.”

She nodded.  “So how are you doing?”

“Managing.  I tire more easily and my concentration is shot, but otherwise, I’m not particularly impaired.”  

Sara was pleasantly surprised.  Usually it was a lot harder to get information out of Rip with regard to his health or general well-being.  Then again, she thought, perhaps that wasn’t a good sign.  If he didn’t have the energy to prevaricate…

“Ray and Martin are working on it.  I think they’re close to making a breakthrough,” she lied.  

The tentative plan was to try to find some food source and a safe place to put the little monster where it could live without hurting anyone.  

“You should let us find a way to detach you.”  

He frowned, they’d had this discussion before.  

“I’m not saying that we should let him starve.  But maybe it could take a little bit from all of us, instead of just you.”  Sara pressed.

“No.”  Rip vetoed her, as he’d had every other time this topic came up.  “The more I speak to the chronovore, the more that I think that Lieutenant Connors’ death was an accident.  I think that his ability to control himself while feeding was damaged by whatever it was that got him to the station.  Without a bond in place, he has no means of controlling how he feeds.  If he bonds with someone else, we still have the same problem.”  But his face said: I’m not going to risk any of you.

Sara exhaled.  “Fine, have it your way.  But we will find an answer.”

“I have no doubt.”

__

Unfortunately, two days later, they still hadn’t found that answer, and Rip’s condition was getting worse.  He was always exhausted now, and so weak that he could barely cross a room unaided.  Conversation was becoming difficult, as he would lose focus mid sentence.  And he’d lost so much weight that even his clothes couldn’t hide it anymore.  His face was starting to look like a death’s head mask.

He’d refused to go to sickbay and instead spent the majority of his time sitting with the chronovore in the parlour.  The crew already knew what was wrong with him and, for the moment at least, he was able to see to his own needs, he had explained.  The crew compromised (or rather, they mutually decided without actually consulting Rip) by trying to make sure that a crewmember was within ear shot at all times.

It was annoying but also rather touching, he told the chronovore, who nodded solemnly, his borrowed eyes wide.  The chronovore was his constant companion, and he was growing strangely accustomed to seeing him sitting there, playing with a toy or looking at pictures.  Once he had been officially banned from more strenuous activities, Rip’s boredom had led him to attempt to teach the chronovore how to read.  He hadn’t been successful, apparently the chronovore’s visual processing didn’t work enough like a human’s.  But the chronovore didn’t seem to mind.

It was hard, of course, to see the chronovore wearing Jonas’s face.  But not as confusing as Rip had expected.  The chronovore was a very different child than Jonas.  Jonas had been active and enthusiastic, chattering a mile a minute and constantly asking questions.  The chronovore was quiet and contemplative, seemingly content just to be in Rip’s presence.

But then, he corrected himself, the chronovore  _ wasn’t _ a child and the only enjoyment he got out of Rip’s presence was being able to satiate his appetite.

Rip couldn’t deny however that there was an odd comfort to seeing his son’s face, alive and animated.  He’d lived so long with the images of Jonas and Miranda’s bodies in his mind, seeing them every time he closed his eyes, that he was afraid he was starting to forget what they looked like.  He would try to call an image to mind, and all he’d see is blood and plasma burns, and a long vacated shell left to rot.  The hologram helped, sometimes, he would stare at it and study it for so long that he could recite the message verbatim.  He could set it to a tune if he were so inclined.  But it was the image he wanted, something to chase away the images of death.  It never worked for long.

This was the same, he thought, as he looked over at the chronovore.  Another simulacrum to replace a devastating truth.  He hoped his son would forgive him for imagining an alien in his place.  His vision swam at the thought.

The chronovore looked up at him intently, and Rip started to try to get out of his chair to speak to him.  But the deck rocked beneath his feet.  How ridiculous.  They were a space ship, not a boat.  Gideon was perhaps taking the metaphor too far.

The chronovore was there now, grabbing his arms in a grip far too tight for a child.  Rip thought blearily that he should tell him that, but he didn’t know if the chronovore wanted constructive criticism.  As the world melted away entirely, he could hear a child’s voice calling for help.

__

“So how long does he have?”  Sara asked Martin, as they stood just outside sickbay.  Inside, Rip was asleep or unconscious, hooked up to machines.  He looked dead.  The chronovore was with him.

Martin looked haunted, “I don’t know, but it can’t be very long.  We only just managed to restart his heart this time.  Thank god, Ray heard the child’s scream.”

Ray glanced up from where he was sitting with the chronovore.  He was the only one besides Rip who could stomach the little monster.  It wasn’t just that it was an alien menace that was killing their captain, though it was part of it.  It was also that, for the first time, they really could fathom an inkling of what Rip had actually lost.  Of course, they’d all lost people.  But there was something about being able to put a face to a name, to a child, that made it that much more real.  

“It’s okay.”  He patted the child.  “You saved him.”

“He’s killing him!”  Sara snapped.  Just because the chronovore looked like a cute child didn’t mean it was one.  The chronovore looked up at her.

“I am,” it said.  “I wish I wasn’t.”

Sara didn’t really want to believe it; it was easier to hate it, but the chronovore had no reason to lie.

“If only we could find a way to help you,”  Ray said.  “If we could find you something that you could eat besides us.”

It shook its head, a human gesture that it must have borrowed from Rip.  “I don’t know.  When we were home, we didn’t have to eat very often.  There was lots of energy.  But then it was gone, and there was a tear, and I was somewhere else.  And very hungry.  I’m always hungry.”

Ray and Martin exchanged a glance.  “Rip said the chronovores were from Vanishing Point, right?  Or places like Vanishing Point?”

“That is correct,”  Gideon provided, her glowing blue image immediately materializing in the center of the room.  She related the information that Rip had told them earlier, particularly the slow and infrequent eating habits.

“He said there was energy there.  That energy must have somehow provided the chronovores with additional nourishment, beyond what they could get from humans. But what kind of energy?”

“The Oculus!”  Ray yelped.  “The timing fits.  The Oculus must have given off energy that the chronovores fed on, and once we blew it up, no more food source.”  His face fell.  “That means this is our fault.”

“We didn’t have a choice,” Sara reminded him.  “But what can we do now?  The Oculus doesn’t exist anymore.”

“No,” Martin agreed, a tired smile crossing his face, “but we can find some kind of ambient energy that is similar to that given off by the Oculus.  We can save them.”

__

Ultimately, it turned out that the Oculus’s energy emissions (as recorded by Gideon prior to the assault on Vanishing Point) were very similar to that of a young proto star.  They quickly found one some four million years before humans would develop in the galaxy, just in case.

The chronovore could sense the emissions even from within the ship and grew excited.  But the problem now was how to undo the bond.  The chronovore was ready to leave, but Rip, even unconscious, was keeping him trapped.

“We have to wake him up.”

“He’s not in any condition to-”

“He’ll die if we don’t.”  

It was difficult to rouse their Captain, but gradually his eyes opened.  They didn’t focus on anyone in particular.  He didn’t seem to be aware of any of them.  His mouth shaped words, two names.  Sara wondered sadly if he always woke up like that, and realized that the answer was probably ‘yes’.

“Rip, listen to me.  We found a food source for the chronovore, but you have to let it go before it kills you.”

“Jonas,” he whispered again, eyes filling with tears.

“No.”  The chronovore stepped forward and took Rip’s hand in two of his.  “No, I’m not.  I’m sorry.”

“Jonas is dead, Rip.”  Sara said, harshly, hating herself as she did.  But they didn’t have time to be gentle, even now, the monitors were showing signs of respiratory and pulmonary distress.  If they didn’t get him to let go, he would die.  “You have to let him go.  Trust us, and let him go.”

That did it, apparently.  The alien drew back and started to expand into bright light.  Sara spared a moment to hope that they were right about this and that the chronovore wasn’t going to turn around and decide to eat them all.

They were right.  The light that was the chronovore drifted straight through the walls of the ship.  A display appeared on one of the monitors, courtesy of Gideon, and they could see a small glowing light make its way into the molecular cloud of the protostar, and then they couldn’t see it anymore.

__

It took some time to recover, but this wasn’t the first time that Rip had managed to run himself down to embers.  It was the first time that he had help, granted.  But fortunately Gideon already knew how to deal with the worst of it.  And humans were a remarkably hardy lot.  Some supplemental nutrition, sleep, and a bit of rejuvenation therapy to deal with the strain that he’d placed on his internal organs, and he was good as new.

And so was the timeline it seemed, as Gideon cheerfully recited:  “According to our records now, in 2243, the Alpha Centauri relay station under Commander Lynn Mehta was instrumental in facilitating first contact with a species called the Xig after detecting and decoding a subspace distress call.  The relationship between humans and the Xig is generally positive and lead to mutual advancements in xenobiology and food production.  In addition, Commander Mehta’s own work in the field of theoretical mathematics as applied to temporal mechanics has earned her several high honors, including the Eobard Thawne Award of Scientific Merit, though the work is not considered to have much practical application.”

“No practical application?”  Jax scoffed.  “These people wouldn’t know practical application if it hit them.”

“Not for them,” Gideon said cheerfully.  “However, it looks like it might be very useful for us.”  

Jax’s eyes lit up and he and Gideon began engaging in a spirited conversation.

At any other time, Rip might have been interested in joining in, but right now, he was happy just to watch from the parlour door.

“So, how are you doing?”  Sara joined him, holding two shot glasses.

“Per Gideon, I’m completely recovered,” Rip said, though he had trouble meeting Sara’s eyes.

“That’s not what I mean.  When I saw Laurel, even for a moment, it was-”

“Jonas is dead,”  Rip cut her off, harshly.  She looked a little hurt, and he relented.  “Your loss is new.  Mine isn’t.  And I’ve gotten used to waking up with the knowledge that he and Miranda are gone.”

“For someone who lies all the time, you’re really bad at it,”  Sara said.

“So I’ve been told,” he shook his head and then his lips quirked up slightly in what was almost a smile.  “But for the first time in far too long, I can actually remember Jonas as he was and not just the way he looked when he died.  I suppose I have to be grateful to the chronovore for that.”

“Don’t be that grateful.  It did nearly kill you,”  Sara said.

“Yes, but you saved me.  All of you.” Even now, after everything with Vandal Savage, Rip still found it hard to adjust to the idea that he had a crew.

Sara seemed to read his mind.  “You’re not alone anymore, Rip.”  She handed him one of the shot glasses.  “You have us.”

“To us,”  Rip held out his glass and she clinked it with hers.  “And to not being alone.”  


End file.
